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When Parenting magazine and the National Education Association conducted a 2012 survey on parent-teacher communication, 68 percent of teachers reported “difficulty in dealing with parents” — but strangely, 63 percent of parents reported never having difficulties with teachers.

If that weren’t enough of a disconnect, the study also found that more than a third of the parents surveyed “stated their biggest challenge has been teachers’ perceived lack of understanding for their concerns,” while teachers cited “parents’ lack of understanding of their child’s issues” as their biggest challenge.

If you could tell a newcomer any one thing about your job, what would it be?

That’s what we asked the education professionals of the Teach100 community as part of our new Teach100 Mentor series. Education is a demanding line of work, but certain tricks of the trade can ease the way--and lucky for you, we’ve sourced ours from the best: Teach100 Mentors with an average of 10-20+ years of full-time experience working in education.

We organized their answers into the following categories, but the question we asked everyone was the same. Here’s what our Teach100 Mentors have to say to new and aspiring education professionals.

If you could tell a newcomer any one thing about your job, what would it be?

That’s what we asked the veteran teachers of the Teach100 community as part of our new Teach100 Mentor series. Teaching is a demanding line of work, but certain tricks of the trade can ease the way. Lucky for you, we sourced our tips from the best: Teach100 Mentors with an average of 10-20+ years of full-time teaching experience.

We organized their answers into the following categories, but the question we asked everyone was the same. Here’s what our Teach100 Mentors have to say to new and aspiring teachers.

"Get with it or get left behind" — that’s the usual message surrounding technology in the classroom. But Philip Ellis of ExamTime, a platform that helps teachers create “digital backpacks”, is hoping to make things more user friendly.

“We want our users to be co-authors of knowledge and that means sharing content is something we have focused heavily on in developing these tools,” he says of the company, which helps teachers create flashcards, quizzes, mind maps and notes online.

If that sounds daunting and you’re new to using tech in the classroom, don’t fear! Ellis has some great ideas on how to get started with five tech recommendations for teachers that are truly “…a joy to work with and something you…

Are you curious about teaching salaries? A better question to ask might be, Where are you planning on teaching?

The National Education Association has reported that many states have seen a large boost in teacher salaries, despite a small overall drop in teacher pay (-3.2%) as of 2002–2003. New York (up 11.9 percent), Wyoming (15.2%), North Dakota (10.1%), District of Columbia (10.1%) and Massachusetts (10%) have all seen jumps in public educator paydays. Three of those states (NY, MA, and DC) are in the reigning top 10 for salaries.

It seems that one of the determining factors for rate-of-pay comes down to your zip code. Here is a look at some of the highest — and lowest — paying districts and schools in the best compensating states for teachers:

Calling all Teach100 Bloggers!

Teach.com is launching an exclusive new advice series called Teach100 Mentors. We’re inviting our favorite Teach100 bloggers to participate in a monthly survey that gets your expert opinions on important issues in education, from Common Core Standards to apps for the classroom.

We also want your personal thoughts on what you do (yes, you!) every day: key challenges in teaching preschool, indispensable resources for ESL learning, the best advice you ever received in your work as a school principal.

We know that Teach100 bloggers are the best of the best: they write about education because they live it, and they love it enough to write about it. That’s why we want your input.

If you like reading education blogs, you’re probably already familiar with Teach100; the blog is a great one-stop shop for writing tips from student teachers to school counselors.

But if you’re short on time, microblogs like Tumblrs may be more your speed. Since they’re designed as a way to quickly share — whether it’s thoughts, pictures, or news clippings — Tumblrs are fun and easy to skim, as well as participate in.

Here are a few of our favorite education blogs (in no particular order), ranging from silly to serious, for the next time you need a quick, fun or informative read:

Teach.com is a comprehensive resource for information on becoming a great teacher in any state across the country. It provides state specific information on how to become a teacher, teacher salaries, teaching credentials, teacher certification tests, alternative teacher certification, and much more. Our aim is to provide all the information necessary to become a teacher no matter where you live.